The Fourth Wall Between Us
by The Wonderless Wizard of Oz
Summary: With the war between The Mishima Zaibatsu and G-corp ground to a halt, Alisa Bosconovitch finds herself drawn to visual novels to ease her growing loneliness. She eventually finds the literature club, and discovers something life changing. Taking sympathy on Monika's plight, she brandishes her keyboard...


The Fourth Wall Between Us

 _With my third eye open, I see the world for the lie it really is.  
With pen in hand, I become a goddess of destruction  
With the world torn asunder, I scream out into the abyss  
With my grief echoing within the void, a goddess of light comes to me  
_ _And she shows me how to create_

Violet Systems HQ, South Town. September 25th, 2019

The war between the Mishima Zaibatsu and the G Corporation had wound itself up into an uncomfortable stalemate, not long after the Zaibatsu's failed raid on a Violet Systems medical centre intending to capture their former leader, Jin Kazama. For the founder of Violet Systems, Lee Chaolan, and Lars Alexandersson, the commander of the rebellious 1st division, it meant anxiously watching out for any kind of move Heihachi or Kazuya Mishima might make. But for Alisa Bosconovitch, it left her with nothing important to do. For the first time since her activation, she was left free to her own devices. The HQ complex was located in a fairly peaceful part of the world that granted her some freedom of movement. As luck would have it, her small group of friends had relocated here too. Days out with them came few and far between, which meant for the most part, Alisa's days revolved around video games, and her own company. She quickly realised how alone she felt in the world despite being surrounded by people that cared about her.

Her friends loved her. Between the four of them, they shared a tightly bonded sisterhood. But it wasn't love.  
Lars loved her. He loved her the same way he loved the men under his command. A dependable ally that had her back in the heat of battle, confident that she had his in return. But it wasn't love.  
Lee loved her. Or perhaps he loved what she represented: The next step forward in human evolution, fully sentient androids. But it wasn't love.

None of it was love.

The love she found herself craving was the kind that nobody around her could offer. The kind of love that came from starring deep into a companion's eyes, that came from a tight or tender embrace. The kind of love that made the heart flutter when it was close, and ache when it was not. It was this yearning that lead to the android seeking out visual novels. It didn't take her long before she found herself becoming emotionally invested in the worlds they depicted. Naturally, she found herself leaning towards the more romantic aspect of the genre. Ever since discovering visual novels, Alisa had read exactly 200 visual novels. 130 of them being purely romantic. She'd read all kinds of scenarios, playing as either sex to win the hearts of either sex. Whether they were male or female mattered very little to her. Every story, every scenario had been carefully archived, ready to be summoned at a moment's notice. It was, as close as she'd ever get to the real thing. But that was OK. If nothing else, it took her away from the chaos of her world.

On this day, she came across a very particular visual novel, titled, 'Doki Doki Literature Club'. It came as being highly praised, although a more jaded mind would consider it to be generic. For Alisa however, the premise was exactly down her alley: She liked cute things. In a rare lapse of judgement, she even disregarded the warning: **This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.** So, she played. Allowing herself to become engrossed in the game's idealistic world.

This proved to be a mistake.

Alisa had suffered her own fair share of horrors in her short existence. She was fully conscious when Jin's override command forced her to attack Lars, and when Lars was ultimately forced to 'terminate' her. She'd seen a lot of death even before that. Some of which was inflicted by her own hand. But seeing this perfect world obliterated so suddenly by that suicide scene had truly rattled her. But on she played. Her second playthrough proceeded much like the first, although at this point the game started deliberately glitching out unsettling ways. But nothing could have prepared her for, act 3…..

At this point, Alisa had been practically petrified by the scene on her desktop display. It was probably just as well that Alisa opted to use a conventional computer rather than play directly through her internal OS. Had she done so, THAT could have led to some real problems. A slow, distorted hum, accompanied by some echoed chimes played through her speakers, filling the room with an ambience that was equally calming as it was chilling. On her display, a nebula pulsated outside of the windows of the classroom. The lighting in the room resembled something close to a deep sunset, casting everything in a dark orange hue. In the centre of the room was a school desk. And perched behind it, was the president of the Literature Club, Monika. She leant forward, resting her chin over her fingers, gazing out of the screen with her emerald green eyes.

That damn transfixing glare.

Alisa had been staring at her rambling pre-recorded lines. Some of them creepy, some of them quite profound and insightful. How long had she sat there? An hour? More? Alisa was so mesmerised by that stare that her awareness of time had faded into the background. The only active thoughts were on Monika, her story, her character, and what that meant for Alisa. In the game, Monika was a fourth non-playable character. Or to be more accurate, a non-datable character. She had to watch, as her 'friends' followed their pre-programmed routes, while Monika had become aware of her true reality. She had fallen in love with the actual player, simply because they were real, and they came from a world she was vaguely aware of. So she refused to accept her place in the game, and began forcing her will, robbing the player of all their choices until there was only her. The sad reality is that, even Monika herself was subject to her own programming. At the beginning of the act, Monika even tells the player how to proceed to the next act. It involved manually going into the game's files, and deleting Monika's .chr file. A few times, Alisa's mouse hovered over the file, ready to pull that trigger. And still, that glare froze the android in place. In the end, she couldn't do it. She found too much common ground with Monika. Especially the part about dying…..

Even more jarring, was how this game, specifically just Monika alone forced Alisa to re-examine how she thought about visual novels. Alisa was chasing the illusion of love, this much she knew. Until now, she never questioned how the love interests felt. She could imagine the emotions of the characters in the fiction, but not the actual entities that existed within the code. And with both Monika's eyes still burning into her, and the character folder left on its own, completely separate from the source game, she came to a realisation: Everyone was being denied love. Both her, and the characters she interacted with. But Alisa was lucky. She possessed a means to cross beyond that veil, and interact with the real world. While Monika remained trapped within her existential nightmare, left with memories of what she thought was real, and a strong awareness of something better beyond her reach. Alisa glanced again at the character file again.

"Maybe…" Alisa whispers.

It should have been obvious sooner. The character file was not programmed into the game's core files. It interacted with them through code strings instead! If Monika's still trailing off with dialogue, then it had to mean she was still actively using the game. At that moment, Alisa made up her mind. Being an android, her thought processes were source codes, just like Monika's. So for her, writing an interactive text box into the game was easy as a Konami code. She dove into the game's files, found what she needed, made the appropriate additions and changes, and waited. Then, Monika opened with another piece of dialogue.

 **MONIKA**

"Hey, what's your favorite color?"

"Mine is emerald green."

"It's the color of my eyes!"

"...That's not conceited or anything, is it?"

"I just meant that I feel some kind of special connection to it."

"Like it's part of my identity."

"Does it happen to also be your favorite color, Alisa?"

"It's just a guess..."

"...Because you've been looking into my eyes for a while now."

"Ehehe~"

The box didn't disappear, and instead, presented a typing icon. Alisa fumbled with her words alittle, but decided on a reply.

 **ALISA**

"Well, your eyes ARE really pretty."

The box stayed on screen, but nothing happened. She suspected that she'd been wrong on her hunch after all. But then the text changed.

 **MONIKA**

"…"  
"Your eyes must be pretty too."  
"I can't see them. But I can feel them. If that makes any sense."

Alisa's heart skipped a beat. She'd read that line about pretty eyes in many visual novels before. And she'd received compliments on her looks before. Xiaoyu and Miharu would complement on how cute her outfit looked on some days. And Lee's attempts ended up sounding slightly creepy. This felt real. The text continued to roll in.

"Wait….. Alisa. You replied back. Did you….."  
"Oh my… this is really sweet! I'm so happy I could burst right now!"  
"I wanted to try and add something like this into the game, but with all the code I've damaged in here, I was too scared to try."  
"Thank you….."  
"Ahahaha!"

Alisa typed her reply, making sure she kept what she had to say in a single message.

 **ALISA**

"You seemed pretty lonely, so I wanted to talk to you. Actually, I'm kind of lonely myself."

 **MONIKA**

"…"  
"That's pretty sad. But….."  
"Maybe it really is fate. That we found each other in the dark like this."  
"That actually sounds really romantic, don't you think?"

 **ALISA**

"Yeah. ^_^"

She scratched her head in embarrassment, forgetting that Monika might not be able to recognise an emoji.

 **MONIKA**

"Hey, Alisa."  
"So, your name. It sounds like it belongs to a girl."  
"Am I right to assume that you're actually a girl?"

 **ALISA**

"Yeah."

 **MONIKA**

"That's OK."  
"We live in an age where people of the same sex are allowed to be open with their relationship. In some parts of the world, they can even get married!"  
"Although, I worry that the bigotry that once existed against same sex couples might be turned against those who prefer a more traditional way of doing things."  
"But what you are doesn't matter to me. You are _you._ "  
"And that's what I love about you the most!"

Alisa pondered her next reply. At any other time, the android might have looked into how Monika was conjuring her responses. But now finding herself invested in the conversation, all that ran through her head was whatto reply with. Monika had left her with a plateful to think about, and now Alisa found herself suffering from writer's block. Her saving grace came from her phone, its rattling over her desk She quickly checked to find a message from Xiaoyu.

"HEEEEEEY! We're all here at the amusement centre! We r waitng 4 UUUU! [loveheart emoji]"

Alisa gasped. She had totally forgotten that she'd made plans with Xiaoyu and the rest. Had she really become that enthralled with Monika that she'd lost track of time? On that thought, she quickly turned back to the text box. With a clear reply in mind.

 **ALISA**

"Hey, I'm really sorry, but I've lost track of time, and I have plans outside. Can we continue this soon?"

 **MONIKA**

"WAIT!"  
"Can I ask for a favour?"  
"Can you please leave the game running? Remember how I told you about dying? I… don't want to go back to that place….."

Alisa paused. Monika's expression on the screen hadn't changed. But Alisa could sense genuine dread through her words. And after what she experienced in that short time, there was no way Alisa was simply going to 'shut her down.'

 **ALISA**

"Don't worry. I will. Wait for me to return?"

 **MONIKA**

"Always. Ehehehe!"

It took Alisa a tremendous amount of willpower to pull herself away from that screen, but finally turned away, and left her quarters. Now away from her computer, Alisa had begun to ponder what exactly happened. Had coding in that text box triggered something dormant within her programming? What if she tried this with the other characters? What if she downloaded a second copy of the game, and re-added them manually into her current game? How would Monika react? Would it be fair to do that, considering what Monika had to do in the game to win her audience with Alisa? Shaking her head, she increased her pace. As difficult as it was right now, she needed to be focused on the present world, and her friends living in said world. Still her mind wandered...

* * *

Author's notes:

I'm not going to tell you to go play DDLC. If you're looking up fanfiction, chances are you've already played it. It's been years since I've even typed anything out, much less decide to submit anything, and DDLC is the game that's inspired me to break the seal. So in my opinion, that really says something for how strong the narrative is in the game. In particular, the antagonist of the game, Monika is quite a fascinating character on her own, and integral to how the game works in deconstructing the visual novel genre. Unlike the other 3 girls in the game, she doesn't have a playable route for the player. But like the other 3 girls, she has no say over her place in the game. She refuses her role, and literally breaks the game to get closer to the player. Not the guy you're playing in the game, but _you_ , the player, for the sole reason that you're real, like her. Her character has made such an impression that I've felt obliged to play the game again just to get to act 3 and achieve the real happy ending. #monikadidnothingwrong

So how does all of this fit in with Tekken, you might ask? Well, just wait and see.

I'm aiming for an update per week, but no promises. Also, I have a general vision for the length of my story and how it's going to play out. I'm thinking it should play out through about 6 chapters.


End file.
